Autumn 2023
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled on the 22nd of November the contents of his Autumn 2023 Statement in the House of Commons. It contained "110 growth measures" aimed at helping to grow the economy and boost business investment by £20bn a year.
Our full Budget summary can be found here and we have set out below a summary of the main tax and related measures:
Please download our detailed Budget Summary above for comprehensive details, but the headline measures announced were:
- Class 1 employees NI cut by 2% from January 2024.
- Class 2 NI abolished for the self-employed and Class 4 NI cut by 1% from April 2024.
- National living wage to increase by 9.8% to £11.44 an hour from April 2024.
- Capital Allowances full expensing made permanent, which will allow companies to deduct expenditure on new equipment and machinery from profits.
- R&D tax credit schemes to be merged from April 2024, lowering the rate for loss-making businesses in the merged scheme to 19%, and reducing the intensity threshold for loss making SMEs to 30%.
- Extending Investment Zones and Freeports incentives.
- Pensions triple lock – basic state pension increasing by 8.5% to £221.20 a week from April 2024.
- 75% discount on business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure companies has been extended for another year.
- Small businesses rates multiplier frozen for a year.
- Universal Credit and other benefits to increase by 6.7% from April 2024.
- Alcohol duty frozen until 1 August 2024, but not tobacco duty.
- Changes to simplify the design of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self-Assessment (ITSA).
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.